Geeks and Geezers Survey: Social Media links Youth and Young at Heart

Yet another survey indicating the need for businesses to embrace social media tools – especially those trying to reach a market between the ages of 18-44.  You can download this report for free at the Success Performance Solutions site.

Some of the survey highlights are:

• More than 50% of all respondents have opened accounts on LinkedIn, a business social networking site.
• LinkedIn participation seems to be a site frequented more by 4-year college and higher graduates than high school and technical grads; Facebook enjoys a more universal appeal regardless of education.
• Only eighteen percent of respondents 55 years and older have a Twitter account but more than 25 percent of Gen X and Gen Y college graduates have one.
• Downloading music from the Internet seems to be an activity shared by young and old alike: 62 percent of pre-1945 respondents said yes to downloading music, just slightly less than the 68 percent of the 44 year old and younger crowd.
• YouTube by far had the most universal appeal with 76 percent of all respondents watching videos on this multimedia site.

Posted using ShareThis. Image from www.super-solutions.com

Easily post to Facebook

If you’re like many of the people I communicate with out there – you probably have a Facebook account. If you don’t then you probably wouldn’t be reading my blog anyway.

Facebook has made it VERY easy for you to share stuff you find interesting with your friends on Facebook by adding the “Share on Facebook” bookmarking button to your toolbar. Adding this button is easier than putting on your shoes with your eyes closed. You simply drag and drop it into your toolbar. Get it here (don’t drag the one in this blog silly).

Happy sharing!

Are we advancing or being “pulled” along?

I named this blog “THINK” with a subtitle of “Things that make ya go hmmm” – and I want to make sure I’m providing enough information that lives up to such a heading. I’ve challenge myself with this topic on a regular basis and I’d love to hear what others think about this as well…

We’re in this technological society that many would say is advancing us. However, I question who’s actually advancing and who’s being “pulled along” for the ride. I also question whether the supposed “advancement” is truly moving us ahead in the long-run, or merely serving a capitalistic need in the short-term.

As much as I’m a fan of the social Web and grateful for the many Citizen Journalists out there sharing and uncovering important events (like Harvard Medical School’s assistant professor Arun Shanbhag’s blog and Twitter coverage of the recent Mumbai attacks). I’m equally concerned about how far some people, businesses and government alike, are presenting this access under the guise of “research,” “competitive advantage, ” or one of the many other euphemisms floating around in our money-making/power-seeking world. It’s one thing to gather this information from others, but another to know how and where it’s being applied. Who’s benefiting from this information? How are they benefiting from it, and why???

What’s even scarier is when people volunteer to be followed or tracked by a company in exchange for a piece of technology – like the smartphone. This NYTimes article shares how young M.I.T. students agreed to have their every move tracked in exchange for a free smartphone. Is this ethical? Does it make it okay if these “kids” agree to that level of personal access? At what point, I wonder, will we begin to revolt against this access and revert back to simpler more private lives, where we can go about our daily activities without the threat of our actions being tracked?

It may not be too far off to consider that business and government are omniscient characters in a novel about your life. Our actions are tracked in many ways – credit card purchases and returns, phone calls made and received, Internet sites visited (including how long you stayed and what links you clicked) – and use of our passports to name a few. One blogger named Adam Berger posted a satirical entry about “How to stop the government from tracking you.”

I’m teaching a class this winter term called an “Intro to Social Media,” and I want to make sure I include a discussion about the ethics of the Social Web. There is a sense of responsibility that comes along with participating in social media and social marketing – both as the deliverer and the receiver. And I’d like to know what others think about the ubiquity of our lives in the advent of technology. If we’re advancing technologically does that also mean mean we’re advancing socially as humans? Grant it, I’m asking this question while I sit here at my laptop, blogging, monitoring my Twitter feeds, Facebook pages, groups, Google groups, other social networks, RSS feeds – and on and on…

The word “advancement” seems to be a relative term – what does it mean to you? What do you think?